March 22, 2000 9:33 PM AP

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) The ripples from Bob Knight's latest controversy widened Wednesday beyond the basketball locker room.

A university sports advisory committee is recommending school president Myles Brand investigate accusations that the Hall of Fame coach choked former player Neil Reed during a 1997 practice.

"We're asking him to look into it. If there's no substance to it, so be it," said Bruce Jaffee, a business professor and chairman of the athletics committee, which advises Brand.

"The press has thought that there is some basis for a review, and we're urging the president to take care of that."

The 13-member panel composed of faculty, students and alumni voted unanimously Wednesday to ask for an investigation. Knight did not attend.

Jaffee said this was the first recommendation the committee has made concerning Knight. He would not answer direct questions about the allegations against Knight or say what action committee members thought Brand should take. The group has no power to discipline Knight.

Indiana athletic director Clarence Doninger was to brief the committee, but school officials said before the meeting there were no plans to play a videotape or review the transcript of a CNN/Sports Illustrated report in which Reed said Knight choked him.

In that report, Reed and two other players also said Knight, pants around his ankles, used a crude bathroom gesture while upbraiding his team. They also said Knight once ordered Brand to leave a team practice.

Knight said that while he sometimes uses colorful means to motivate players, he denied the bathroom episode ever occurred. Knight also said he did not kick Brand out of practice.

After Reed left the team in 1997, he said he was physically and mentally abused by Knight, although he offered no specifics publicly.

Following Reed's departure from the team, the athletics committee heard from Doninger, according to panel member David Towell, an associate professor of geology.

Towell said that in a report to the committee, Doninger said Reed spoke to him but revealed little. He said Doninger told the committee only that Reed said he was unhappy and was leaving.

"Clarence had encouraged him to finish the semester," Towell said.

The alleged bathroom display, meanwhile, and the charge that Knight once grabbed Reed by the throat are "totally news to me," Towell told The Indianapolis Star.

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